Saturday, August 30, 2008

Jack in the Box

It's a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm taking a break from pin basting my quilt. It will be machine quilted in strips. Boomer is reclined at my feet beside the computer. When I move to stand at the bar to pin baste, he moves so his head is right between my feet. He's so loyal when I don't need him and so active when I want him to behave!

While blogging and basting I'm watching the Katharine Hepburn version of Little Women from 1933. Beth has contracted scarlet fever and is sick in bed. The story takes place during the Civil War and the quilt on the bed is a Double Wedding Ring. Not historically correct, but it's hard to blame the art director when this pattern was advertised at the time as from the Colonial Era. During Beth's death scene the quilt is an Ocean Waves. Since the movie is black and white you can't tell the colors, but it seems a little more accurate to the time frame.

Today's free quilt block pattern is Jack in the Box. I did a little research into the history of the pattern and it appears to have been first published in the 1930s. Check out the free pattern to see the full results of my research.

Capitol City Quilt Guild

About Me

Years of quilting, designing and teaching have made me a great trouble shooter. Feel free to email me questions or problems and I'll do my best to solve them. I made my first quilt in 1974, then took a sewing sabbatical as I went to college. Work, marriage, and motherhood followed. In 1982, my first quilting class (with Pepper Cory) provided an escape from child care duties. I was soon hooked, not only on quilting, but on drafting and designing, too. In 1984 I began teaching quiltmaking. While teaching I wrote a series of Block of the Month patterns. Five years later they became my book Block By Block. In 1997, I published my second book, Charm Quilts and landed a job at the Michigan State University Museum. For the last 10 years I've been doing 1000s of hours of data entry for the Michigan Quilt Project and the Quilt Index. I continue to quilt, design, write and now blog. Welcome.